The Sift app was designed to increase transparency in credit card spending and provide credit card users with detailed information on fees and alternatives; the app has the capability to analyze 90% of all issued credit cards in the US for hidden benefits, price adjustment refunds, extended warranties, return protection and more; the firm has announced a $1.5 million fundraising round with the launch of the app and has plans to increase its users and expand the app's offerings. Source
The Financial Conduct Authority released its interim update on crowdfunding rules last week; the update reported that the regulator would be scrutinizing numerous factors pertaining to P2P lending in the UK; one such factor, discussed by the Financial Times, includes the disclosure of loan performance; the introduction of provision funds has caused this disclosure to potentially be misleading for investors; in some cases platforms use provision funds to cover defaults for borrowers; this action could potentially lead to better than actual loan performance on the loans. Source
LendFoundry has enhanced its lending operating system (LOS); the LOS can now support loan processing and management for point of sale, auto loans, working capital loans and unsecured consumer loans; it also offers one of the industry's best suite of APIs for connecting with industry fintech companies including Clarity Services, Whitepages Pro, FEDChex, Yodlee, Towerdata, Twilio, Plaid, LOB and more; the platform has significantly expanded its API offerings to allow for increased integration across the industry; Brent Fausett, senior vice president and chief commercial officer at LendFoundry says: "Our product development team has built 50+ pre-configured APIs. We will continue on our vision and keep adding new APIs as we believe that a pre-integrated platform places lenders miles ahead of the competition." Source
Upstart Co-Founder Dave Girouard talks with Forbes about alternative credit data modeling and his firm Upstart; Girouard's inspiration for Upstart came from his experience at Google where he was involved in developing algorithmic models for evaluating candidates and their potential success as Google employees; a third of Upstart's management team comes from Google and the firm is now building advanced credit models that utilize machine learning and modern technology to make credit more accessible for borrowers; the firm is targeting loan originations of $1 billion in 2017; Upstart will be at LendIt USA 2017 and is announcing a new white label software as a service product called Powered by Upstart. Source
Funding Circle US has posted several job openings in their capital markets unit including a job posting for a head of US capital markets; Albert Periu, former global co-head of capital markets, has left the firm and become founder of Neptune Financial; according to Funding Circle, Sachin Patel is currently managing global capital markets and he is planning to create a US capital markets team similar to its UK counterpart. Source
The panel explores consumer litigation funding also known as pre-settlement funding, non-recourse funding or lawsuit lending; provides funding to plaintiffs who commonly have a personal injury case; money is used for life needs such as rent, mortgage, tuition, food, etc. and is not a loan; LawCash has provided funding for around 100,000 cases and has been in operation since 2000; YieldStreet is an investment platform for investors to access these types of investments; other topics discussed are how litigation funding is uncorrelated, how deals are underwritten, transparency of companies in the industry and the evolution of litigation finance. Source
Orchard reports on the diversity of business lending, breaking lending down by industry and state using data from Orchard; reports that they have the most data on retail trade followed by health care and social assistance, and construction; shares the concentration of lending of several industries by state. Source
SoFi has securitized another portfolio which was priced on February 2; Moody's provided ratings ranging from Aaa to Baa2 for the portfolio; the portfolio includes private student loans from SoFi; the value of rated loans was $561 million. Source
Brett King interviewed Antony Jenkins for a LendIt USA 2017 keynote presentation titled, "The End of the Beginning: Accelerating Transformation in Financial Services"; King also talked with a number of conference participants in a Breaking Banks podcast titled, "Innovations in Lending at LendIt 2017"; the podcast provides insight from Brock Blake of Lendio, Christoph Rieche of iwoca, Ohad Samet from TrueAccord, Peter Renton from LendIt, John Owens and Emmanuel Daniel of The Asian Banker. Source
Stuart Law from Assetz Capital discusses different platform approaches to security, risk assessment and lending in an article for FT Adviser; provides details on the pre-approval and post-approval process for loans, noting the importance of these processes for investors given that P2P platforms provide alternative investments with potentially higher risks; also discusses the advantages that a provision fund can offer for investor security. Source